


boats and birds

by savage_starlight



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Adult Language, Beau and Jester are cameos really but I tagged them anyway because why not, Fluff, Gen, Jokes, Other, Pre-Relationship, widomauk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-29 01:32:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18297611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savage_starlight/pseuds/savage_starlight
Summary: “Who says you have to be happy to laugh? A joke’s still a joke, and if it’s funny that’s just how it is. Don’t tell me Zemnians don’t believe in jokes.”“Of course we have jokes.”Molly raises an eyebrow. “Oh? Tell me one, then. I’m all ears.”(AKA: the story in which Molly enjoys acrobatics but doesn’t excel at them, Caleb’s sense of humour is called into question, and Twiggy has a knack for causing cute moments even when she isn’t directly involved.)





	boats and birds

**Author's Note:**

> So I couldn’t not write this after watching Episode 45. I just couldn’t shake the idea of Molly joining Twiggy in the rigging and so this happened? Doesn’t really have much to do with the original idea anymore, but that’s beside the point! I hope you enjoy my first attempt at writing critical role fanfic. : D (Oh, also - the title comes from the song “Boats and Birds” by Gregory and the Hawk. It weirdly reminds me a lot of widomauk? Not sure why, but there you have it.)

The sunlight is warm against his skin as Molly hangs upside down from the rigging that goes up to the crow’s nest, drifting in a lazy circle. It’d be an easy enough task to unhook his foot from the rope he has it coiled in and give a quick flip to stick the landing, but there’s something oddly comforting about hanging upside down like this. It reminds him of the circus, and of the Knot Sisters dangling and contorting themselves every night as part of their act. They’d been two of the grumpiest people he’d ever known, prior to meeting Beauregard. He wonders how they’re doing.

“Hey Molly!” Jester’s voice rings out from above him, and he glances up – down? – to look at her. She’s leaning over the edge of the crow’s nest, grinning ear to ear. “Why are you just hanging there? Are you stuck again?”

“Never,” Molly calls back, and kicks himself free. It takes a few attempts and he ends up flailing gracelessly for a moment before he catches himself on a rope and scrambles back up to join Jester. Propping his chin on his hands, he tangles a leg around the posts of the nest and grins at her. “Did you need something, darling?”

“ _Noooooo_ , not really,” Jester singsongs in her familiar, slightly childish way. “Twiggy’s been talking to Caleb forever though and playing with Frumpkin and it’s boring up here without people to talk to.” She leans in closer to him. “Actually, though, were you stuck just now? Because you looked kind of stuck and you were flopping a bit – you know, like Nott did that one time when she fell in the water she was walking on because she tripped on a rock?”

Molly smothers his grin and glances around before leaning in conspiratorially. “Can you keep a secret?”

“Yes, of course. I’m like, the best secret-keeper of all time. Well, I’ll probably tell the Traveler, but he’s always here so he’s gonna know anyway.”

“Alright then. Truth is….I really wasn’t stuck.” Molly grins and taps Jester on the nose, then steps back off the nest and catches himself, swinging from the ropes again.

Above him, Jester is looking down with her eyes scrunched up at the corners. “You were too. Just a little.”

“Maybe a little,” Molly concedes. “But I have to have an off-day every now and then, otherwise Nott might get jealous and then where would we be? I mean, look at this.” He lets himself relax, his legs slipping from the coils of rope. He means to fall a bit, to catch himself and swing around gracefully in some dramatic and appropriately glorious echo of Twiggy’s earlier descent. Instead, a wind picks up at the exact moment he lets go, blowing the ropes out of reach so that suddenly he’s in free fall. He curses, scrambling for a hold to avoid taking the full brunt of the sudden stop at the bottom and manages to grab a rope just tightly enough to almost dislocate his shoulder before he loses his grip again and crashes the rest of the way to the deck below.

For a moment, the wind is knocked out of him with such force that it’s all he can do to blink at the sky like an idiot. He doesn’t feel terribly injured, but he can already tell that his back and tailbone both are going to be one enormous bruise for a few days. Jester calls something he can’t make out, and he waits for the static to clear.

It’s then that Beau appears over him, her arms crossed and an eyebrow raised. “Wow. Was this how your audition for the acrobatics act at the circus went too? Think I get why they had you telling fortunes and spreading bullshit now.”

“Fuck you, Beau.”

“Fuck you too, Molly,” Beau says, and pulls him to his feet. “Anything broken?”

Molly blinks the last of the stars out of his eyes and twists gingerly. “Nothing at all.”

“Yeah, I figured. I mean, it’s not like you had pride to injure, right?”

Molly opens his mouth to reply, but is cut off by the sound of applause. He looks up to see Jester  cheering, her voice magnified by the familiar thaumaturgy spell. “That was a really great fall, Molly! I’m really impressed!”

Molly gives a little bow and turns his wince into a smile. “Thank you, thank you. I’ve been practising. I’m glad it’s working in my favour.”

“Keep practising,” Beau advises, then claps Molly on his now-injured shoulder and walks away. He’s still rubbing at it ruefully and wondering how to best get her back for that when Twiggy runs past him, a grime coloured blur chasing after Frumpkin. Molly scans the deck for Caleb, then blinks.

The wizard is sitting cross legged on the deck, a spell book lying open in front of him and Twiggy’s Happy Fun Ball in his lap. Because Molly is an idiot and likes to pretend that he has a chance of breaking through the ten layers of trauma Caleb wears like a second skin to find the person underneath and convince him he’s worth something, he takes a minute to appreciate the view. Caleb’s shirt is unbuttoned at the neck, his sleeves rolled up to where the bandages on his arms stop, and as he ducks his head the sun glints copper off his hair.

He’s bloody beautiful, dirt and all. He’s also beet red, his cheeks stained with a particular shade of cherry that Molly hasn’t seen since Nott alerted them all to his “heart condition.” Before he can think better of the idea, Molly’s already walking closer, his pain forgotten and a grin on his face. “Mister Caleb?”

Caleb’s head shoots up, and though Molly hadn’t been certain such a thing was possible his flush seems to deepen as he clears his throat. “Mister Mollymauk. Do you need something?”

“Not at all. Do you?”

“I…No? Why do you ask?”

“Your face is all red. I was wondering if the heat was getting to you.” Molly plops down to sprawl in front of Caleb and leans forward onto his elbows. “You know, I hear a glass of water is great for that. Mug of ale, maybe.”

“I’m fine, thank you.” Caleb looks away and clears his throat.

“I thought you were Caleb?”

That earns him a vaguely disappointed look. “That was a terrible joke, Mollymauk.”

“It was worth a try.” Molly inches forward a bit, close enough that Caleb has to move the spellbook slightly to keep him from laying on it. “You know, I’m not sure you get to be the judge on jokes anymore, Mister Caleb. Twiggy didn’t even get a chuckle out of you earlier.”

“I am not a happy guy,” Caleb says, with a shrug and the exact same intonation he’d used before.

“Who says you have to be happy to laugh? A joke’s still a joke, and if it’s funny that’s just how it is. Don’t tell me Zemnians don’t believe in jokes.”

“Of course we have jokes.”

Molly raises an eyebrow. “Oh? Tell me one, then. I’m all ears.”

“They are not funny if you are not Zemnian.”

“Nonsense,” Molly says and waves a hand. “The only jokes that aren’t funny are puns in a language you don’t speak. Try me.”

Caleb gives him a long, steady look that Molly returns with a shameless grin. Nearly a minute passes before Caleb finally gives a begrudging, exhausted sigh. “Fine, yes. One joke. But then you let me work on this puzzle ball for a minute, _ja?_ It is very arcane and interesting and I’m not certain if our friend will let me keep it when we part ways.”

Molly crosses his heart and grins. “Scout’s honour.”

“I very much doubt you were a scout, but I will hold you to that. Alright. Don’t say I did not warn you.” Caleb sighs again, his eyes drifting to some point in the distance. “Can a kangaroo jump higher than a house?”

“I don’t know, can it?”

“ _Ja,_ of course. A house cannot jump. Ha-ha, very funny, right?” Caleb looks down at Molly and shrugs just barely. “I told you, it isn’t funny unless you are Zemnian.”

He’s right. The joke isn’t all that funny. But there’s something about Caleb’s deadpan delivery, the circumstance, the colouring still fading from Caleb’s cheeks that it all catches Molly in just the right nonsensical combination that he laughs anyway, the reaction pulled from him without his permission. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the confusion on the wizard’s face, the way his brow furrows and the corner of his lip twitches up slightly, and the sight makes Molly even giddier because he’s not convinced he’s ever seen Caleb smile at anything but a bookshop and the fact that he’s doing so even vaguely now isn’t much, but it damn well is something.

“This is not the reaction I was expecting,” Caleb mutters, so quiet Molly almost misses it.

He dashes the tears of laughter out of the corner of his eye. “That was awful. I loved it. Got any more like that?”

“ _Ja,_ probably. I would have to think on it a bit first, but I am sure I could remember some. First, I would really like to work out this puzzle, though-”

“Right, the Happy Fun Ball. We had a deal.” The last bits of laughter fading, Molly straightens up into a sitting position. “I’m nothing if not honest, but I hope you know I’ll be bugging you soon for more terrible jokes.”

For a moment, Caleb looks even more confused than before. Then he nods, just barely. “ _Ja,_ alright. I will try to remember some more.”

“Good.” Molly pushes himself to his feet and looks down at Caleb, his hair still copper in the sunlight. “You know, I’m gonna go tell that one to Twiggy and Nott. Maybe they can surprise you with it if one of them tries to cast that spell on you again.”

Caleb glances up, his eyebrows furrowed. “And what would be the purpose of that?”

“Because maybe it’ll actually get you to laugh. I’d like to see that sometime.” Molly grins at the surprised look on Caleb’s face, reveling in it in the brief moment he has before it registers what exactly he’s just said, then reaches out to ruffle his hair as he passes. “Happy studies, Mr. Caleb,” he calls over his shoulder, and wonders if he imagined the way that Caleb’s cheeks flushed red again.


End file.
